Internet Marketing

Wondering how you’re going to keep your content calendar full for the rest of the year? Thousands of business owners struggle when it comes to content marketing and coming up with content ideas, and a simple strategy can help them: conduct a study or survey.

Original research provides tons of benefits for businesses seeking content marketing performance gains. They can accompany the release of the study with a recap series, for instance. After that, they can dive in-depth into some of the findings for unique takes or insightful real-world applications of the data. At the same time, they can introduce their study to online outlets that get mega traffic with guest posts.

The beauty of conducting original research is that you don’t even have to do all of the content writing yourself! In addition to the content topic possibilities listed above, there’s also a good chance that someone might cite your data or share your report on their own blog. Well-performed research that answers important questions in your field can receive references and citations for months. You may even get quoted as an expert as a result of your own analysis!

Internet marketing strategies can get complex fast, so it helps to take a few steps back to ensure all of the most vital components are in order.

Otherwise, you might get too focused on the details to see that your online marketing funnel as a whole is broken. Or, you might miss out on a key digital marketing practice that would be essential for earning you new leads and converting those leads to customers.

Of course, every business is different and has different needs. Some businesses may be in an industry where finding new leads through social media is nearly impossible, for instance.

Regardless of business variables like these, there are five internet marketing essentials all businesses should account for as part of their overall strategy. Even if you confidently decide that you don’t need one of them, you should at least consider the benefits. Most of all, they bring other businesses that you might be giving up.

The internet is a mobile- first world now, and your website needs to embrace this shift to avoid missing out on opportunities. By prioritizing your mobile experience with user-friendly design principles and an always on-the-go approach to content, you can reap bigger rewards from referral channels and compete more effectively for visibility.

There’s no understating just how much of an impact smartphone devices have had upon the online landscape. Seventy-seven percent of U.S. adults (≈250 million) now own a smartphone, according to Pew Research, and only 17 percent of people own a cell phone but not a smartphone. Even more interesting, there are 6.5 million more smartphone owners than desktop/laptop owners, and 65 million people depend entirely on their smartphones for internet access.

The shift from large, stationary computers to pocket-sized touchscreens has had a huge impact on not just website design but also how online content is consumed in general. Understanding just how much the mobile first mindset has affected the website design process can help your business learn how to build a better website that’s aware of mobile’s center stage presence in our modern tech culture.

Starting a business out of your home is a brilliant idea for creating new income streams or pivoting to a new career path. If you can master the art of internet marketing, your living room or home office can be just as good a place for generating personal wealth as any skyrise office building.

You have a ton of digital marketing tools at your disposal, too. A few of them are absolutely 100% necessary, while others you can pick and choose based on your unique needs.

To help you get started, here is a quick guide to the basics of internet marketing, what you need to effectively earn leads, and what optional tools could help you along the way.

Few business owners have both the time and skill with words needed to do their company blog justice. Business blogs need to look polished and represent the brand well, yet learning to write professionally is a trial-and-error process.

Considering all these personal limitations and high expectations, outsourcing blog writing makes perfect sense. But there is a right way and a wrong way to hire a writer. Many business owners commit hefty mistakes when offering someone the chance to take the reins on their business blog.

Here are six of the biggest of those mistakes. Watch out for them when hiring a blog writer to avoid frustrating setbacks and to ensure your blog is as great as it deserves to be.

Achieving search engine optimization, or SEO, can be a complicated task. SEO doesn’t happen overnight. There is no single trick that will create substantial results in your search engine rankings. You will want to take multiple steps toward boosting your SEO. That is the only way to see real improvement in your site’s rank.

As you invest in online marketing efforts for your business, you might wonder how ads and optimized pages will reach clients in your area. Maintaining accurate local listings is an important tactic in reaching the audiences you want to interact with your website. However, there are some misconceptions about local listings that can impact your visibility when local individuals perform searches relevant to your business. While some business owners assume that local listings auto-update, local listings do actually require some effort to remain accurate. And to drive traffic not only to your website, but also to your physical location.

Small businesses need to manage their own local listings.

Most businesses will have listings that they did not create. Addresses may be automatically pulled from maps, government documents, local directories, or even your website. Therefore, you only need to claim and manage listings rather than create them yourself. In addition to updating your listing with a current address, name, and phone number, there is also another task. You should categorize your business to ensure that it shows up correctly in local searches. It is also important to manage local listings in all major directories. You do not want to rely entirely on services like Google My Business. Consistent, accurate listings can go a long way. This means that it is worth the time to manage all existing listings with the right information.

Local listings can improve visibility and leads.

A local listing contributes to your SEO efforts. It does this by increasing the likelihood that your business will come up in a set of local listings on a search engine results page. It can also improve visibility of your physical location when a person uses Google Maps or any other online map service. Another important attribute of well-managed local listings is mobile marketing. This is becoming increasingly important in the changing landscape of web searches.

A growing number of people browse exclusively on mobile devices. You should not overlook the value of reaching these audiences, which begins with your local listings.

Managing local listings can help you beat out national competitors.

If you are competing against businesses that serve a national market rather than a single local area, your local listing is critical to achieving visibility above your competition. The good news is that Google will reward your listing for having local address and contact information within a given area. To give your local listing even more power against national competitors, include pictures and reviews in your listing.

Like many online advertising efforts, managing local listings is an area where you can find help from local experts. We are ready to boost the visibility of your business. To see how Local Search Essentials can assist in maintaining your local listing and improving your SEO, call us today for a consultation. (904) 823-9747 Or sign-up for a free analysis by clicking here.